Colin Farrell reveals unusual “antidote” for getting out of his Penguin character

The world of Batman is dark, but Colin Farrell has a great hack for making sure he can escape his Penguin villain, Oz Cobb.

When The Batman dropped in 2022, the last thing anyone was expecting was an HBO spinoff series. But with The Penguin, which dropped this month, that’s what we got; a grimy drama about the criminal underbelly of Gotham.

Focusing on the Batman villain, The Penguin takes place one week after the dramatic events of Matt Reeves’ superhero movie. Gotham is flooded and in disarray, meaning it’s the perfect time for Oz to make a power play.

As you’d expect, the world of villains and mobsters isn’t a happy one. Thankfully, Farrell had another job to offset working on The Penguin, but he also had another technique that allowed him to get back into a lighter state of mind: watching Pixar movies.

“It was actually a lovely job,” he explained [via AP Entertainment]. “It was one that was as optimistic and was as light and was as about healing as [The Penguin] is about damage and about darkness and pessimism. This is a really almost borderline nihilistic piece of drama, this eight hours of The Penguin show, you know? So it was a good antidote.”

“But the best thing to do is get back to what’s familiar to you. Family, friends, nature. I mean, I literally started watching Pixar films. I watched Toy Story, and I was going in to watch Pixar films at the end of the working day of Penguin, just to have something light and beautiful.”

It’s a clever technique and one that he may return to in preparation for The Batman 2, which is set to include Oz once again. Thankfully, The Penguin has proven to be a success so far, earning praise from fans and a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

To learn more about the new series, check out our Episode 1 recap. You can also find out why Oz limps, as well as why Batman isn’t in The Penguin. You can also check out all the other new TV shows streaming this month, so you don’t miss a thing.